Mechanics of Flow

Explore Your Structure. Enhance Your Practice. Find Your Flow.

Join Melissa McLaughlin for a four part series that will dive deep into the structure that supports our asana practice. In this series you’ll cultivate greater awareness of the mechanics of your physical body so you can move through your yoga practice with greater stability, sustainability, and ease.

Class 1: Balance the Pelvis: Just how much do we need to stretch our hips? In this workshop we’ll take an uncommon approach to hips focusing on cultivating strength and stability in and around the pelvis. We’ll experiment with pelvic alignment and muscular support in standing poses, twists, and on backbends.

Class 2: Explore the Core: Go beyond the 6-Pack Muscles to explore the deepest parts of your core! When we’re able to stabilize and support the whole trunk movement becomes more fluid and graceful. In this workshop, we’ll relate bandhas to anatomy then move slow and steady through a Vinyasa sequence designed to activate all the regions of your trunk. Eventually ending up to experiment with preparation for and play in arm balances.

Class 3: Stabilize the Shoulders: The shoulders do a lot of work in our Vinyasa practice. Much of the work is a repetitive “pushing” action which overtime can lead to imbalance and injury in the region. In this workshop, we’ll experiment with balancing actions through the entire shoulder girdle and relate shoulders to the muscles in the upper and mid-back. We’ll touch on healthy shoulder alignment in the poses that make-up Surya Namaskar A and play more with arm balances in the Plank Family. We’ll also spend a good deal of time prepping shoulders for and playing with inversions.

Class 4: Ride the Breath:The true gift of Vinyasa yoga comes when we allow the yogic breath to guide our practice. In the last workshop in our series, we’ll get out of our heads and step into our breath, exploring ways to support our practice from the inside out. We will put together all the elements of our previous workshops with fewer alignment cues. With the strong foundation of our previous workshops and breath as our teacher, the flow will feel skillful, graceful, and meditative. We will begin and end this extended practice with pranayama (breathing technics) and seated meditation. This workshop will reveal the wisdom of slow, aligned, breath paced movement, the true essence of Vinyasa yoga.

Ancient Philosophy for the Modern Yogi

Yeah so, yoga's super old but is it?

The Bhagavad Gita is really important but why?

How do the Yoga Sutras relate to my modern householder life? Can I have sex and still reach enlightenment?

That I don't know, but I can share a historical perspective on yoga philosophy. I can facilitate discussion and debate around the central themes of yoga's big deal texts. I can humbly suggest how the central themes of yoga's ancient philosophy still pop up in modern life from parenting to politics. So much of the old is still new and many of our central questions remain the same.

Chiefly among them, why am I here?

Navigate dense texts with a relatable and accessible teacher.

Specialities include:

-The Upanishads & The Bhagavad Gita

-The Yoga Sutras

-The Radiance Sutras

-Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Evolution of Yoga Asana

-From East to West: Yoga's Move across the Oceans

-Relationship of the Upanishads & the Bhagavad Gita to Modern Philosophical Movements including Transcendentalism & Existentialism

Yoga 101

Yoga is for everyone! Always wanted to try yoga but been too intimidated to start? Yoga 101 is a series for the beginner or anyone interested in strengthening the foundations of their yoga practice.

Class !: The Basics: From yogic breathing to Downward Facing Dog, we’ll explore the roots of yoga and a few of it’s most popular poses

Class 2: Standing Poses: Don’t know a Warrior I from a Warrior II, that’s ok! This class will explore the foundations of yoga’s standing poses

Class 4: The Basics of Flow: We’ll put the poses we’ve learned together and introduce sun salutations. Then we'll flow through a full length class guided by breath.

Strength & Mobility

Deepen your understanding of your physical structure while you enjoy a fitness class that incorporates TRX, Balls, and Resistance bands. Expect an engaging strength building circuit along with functional mobility exercises. Fitness enthusiasts & Yoga practitioners alike will benefit. Yoga Practitioners, what you learn can help balance out some of the actions of your asana (yoga postures) practice making it more stable and sustainable over the long haul!

Yoga for Healing

It's imporant to know how to workout, get strong, and push hard. There's a place for structure and discipline in our yoga practices but yoga excels at nurturing. Restorative yoga trains us to take care os ourselves to stay soft, open and gentle. Learn practices to deeply soothe the nervous system in this workshop for healing.

Pranayama, Mantra, & Meditation

While often under taught in public yoga class, the practices of pranayama, mantra, and meditation are some of yoga's oldest and most valuable tools. Melissa McLaughlin is deeply passionate about the benefits of Vedic chanting, Pranayama, and Meditaion. She offers stand alone workshops in each or in addition to any of the aforementioned workshops.